Reinhard Stelter, Professor, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u00bbI can also sometimes think: This is a real nuisance, loading all of this on to us all,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n
It takes a lot of work to process the evaluations. Too much, according to Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel. She offers an example: The bachelor students who started at the department last summer have done seven evaluations in five months, and it all ends up at the administration.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why the response rate is often low. In the latest evaluation from December, one of the courses at NEXS only got one response, while only one in three students on the other courses evaluated them.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI can understand that the students get tired of it, because it takes time to consider what you have learned, what you can use the subject for, and how it can be improved,\u00ab says Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI would like to turn down the volume a bit, because I feel an evaluation fatigue in the system.\u00ab<\/p>\n
She suggests that the administration should refrain from evaluating courses that have just been given an \u2018A\u2019 grade the year before, and concentrate on the courses with the lowest \u2018C\u2019 grade.<\/p>\n
But the evaluations do have some value, according to her. At least at her department.<\/p>\n
When a course is given a \u2018C\u2019, then management always makes an effort to improve the course, she says. This happened as recently as the latest evaluation at the turn of the year, when an instructor was summoned to an interview. The instructor has now been assigned mentors to develop the course.<\/p>\n
We should not, therefore, abolish the written teaching evaluations, she says. But she would like to get rid of a part of the supervision that Reinhard Stelter criticises.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI would like to change the evaluation system. But I can’t tell you how it should be done. We need help from those who do research on the subject. I’m just a slave of it myself.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Rie Snekkerup, Deputy Director for Education & Students at the University of Copenhagen, agrees that the system has become too large and complex.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe balance has tipped towards having too much supervision. It is possible that we should be measuring and assessing things a bit less than we do today.\u00ab<\/p>\n
But it’s one thing to take note of the fact that there is too much supervision. Another to cut down on it.<\/p>\n
I feel an evaluation fatigue in the system<\/p>\n
Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel, deputy Head of department, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The university cannot just abolish the evaluations, according to Rie Snekkerup. The knowledge that comes from them is useful for faculties and boards of studies, when they have to ensure that students get the highest quality teaching.<\/p>\n
If the University of Copenhagen dropped the written evaluations it would get into trouble. The university gets its accreditation from the Danish Accreditation Institution, which requires that the quality of the teaching is systematically measured and assessed.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIf we were to replace the way we do teaching evaluations today, we would need alternatives. We can’t just abolish it. Then the accreditation people would immediately ask us why we did it. And it would seem lame to just say that the system did not provide the knowledge we needed, without us having thought about other solutions.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Rie Snekkerup hopes that the University of Copenhagen will be able to \u00bbsimplify the system\u00ab when the university has to be accredited again in 2024. She cannot yet say how, however.<\/p>\n
Demoted to a tiny cog in the machine<\/h3>\n
If you ask Reinhard Stelter, the university should trust the instructors themselves to evaluate their own teaching.<\/p>\n
As a head of section for thirteen years he knows, however, that it is a difficult situation for his department management team.<\/p>\n
They are expected to be loyal to the system, he says. In fact, it was the increase in top-down management that was the reason why he himself gave up his role as head of section at the end of 2015. He had had enough of pushing through decisions that he disagreed with.<\/p>\n
When he speaks out now, while many of his colleagues stay quiet due to what he calls a \u00bbfear of reprisals\u00ab, it is because he can: \u00bbWell, I’m a senior, so I have nothing to lose,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n
He leans back in his office chair and laughs.<\/p>\n
\u00bbYou used to be something when you were a professor,\u00ab he continues.<\/p>\n
\u00bbNow you have been demoted to a tiny cog in the machine. As a whole, the university in Denmark has completely eradicated all democracy and co-determination.\u00ab<\/p>\n
This is the larger story about the teaching evaluations, according to him. At the universities, you just do what people tell you to from above \u2013 whether it is the ministry or the management \u2013 even if it is a waste of time.<\/p>\n
But management needs to be able to see how students view the quality of the teaching, so that instructors can’t\u00a0 just ignore the criticism and suggestions?<\/em><\/p>\n\u00bbThis is the fundamental question that arises in the entire public sector: How much should the system be based on trust and how much by supervision? I have to say that one of the most central virtues in the interplay between a manager and an employee is mutual trust,\u00ab says Reinhard Stelter.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI’m dreaming of this kind of system. Not the cold system that we have right now.\u00ab
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Nu er man degraderet til et lille hjul i maskineriet,\u00ab siger idr\u00e6tsprofessor Reinhard Stelter.","name":"stelter2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":129716,"date":"2022-01-31 09:24:09","modified":"2022-01-31 09:24:40","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1998,"height":1334,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-768x513.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":513,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-1280x855.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":855,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-1536x1026.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1026,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2.jpg","2048x2048-width":1998,"2048x2048-height":1334,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-290x194.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":194,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-700x467.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-990x661.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":661}},"style":"full","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"\u00bbYou used to be something as a professor. Now you have been demoted to a tiny cog in the machine,\u00ab says sports professor Reinhard Stelter."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"","text":"This is a story about what will follow","use_post_excerpt":true},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>A glaring \u2018C\u2019. Reinhard Stelter sat there, stunned in front of his screen when he opened the student evaluation of his teaching.<\/p>\n<p>His eyes ran down the Excel spreadsheet where all the courses at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS) had been given a grade from A to C, until he found \u2018Coaching\u2019, the course that he teaches himself. It was a tough verdict: He had been given the lowest \u2018C\u2019 grade.<\/p>\n<p>Next to the letter were just two words: \u00bbNo evaluations\u00ab.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read also:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/a-useless-ritual-this-is-why-instructors-and-students-have-to-give-in-evaluations\/\">\u00bbA useless ritual\u00ab? This is why instructors and students have to hand in evaluations<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The problem was, it turned out, that Reinhard Stelter had forgotten to complete his part of the evaluation. This automatically triggered the bottom grade.<\/p>\n<p>It was his own mistake, sure. But for Reinhard Stelter, the little \u2018C\u2019 confirmed something that he had reckoned for a long time: The system for evaluations of the teaching is absurd.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe problem is that it has been reduced to this useless ritual. Even though I may have had good evaluations from the students, I get a \u2018C\u2019, just because I don’t respond,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>He describes a system that is based on supervision rather than trust. And where the outcome from the evaluations in no way corresponds to the time and effort that students and teachers spend completing them \u2014 or that the administration spends processing them.<\/p>\n<p>The only reason why staff at Danish universities sacrifice spend so much time, effort and money on the task is because they have to, according to Reinhard Stelter.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbYou put this colossal administration to work processing these teaching evaluations, but where is the effect on the students’ learning? I cannot, personally, use them for much. I already carry out an in-person oral evaluation, and I am constantly in dialogue with the students on an ongoing basis.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbNo-one in the system really appreciates the evaluations. But our hands are completely tied. Because everyone just toes the line in accordance with the rules that come from the top.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>Growing evaluation fatigue<\/h3>\n<p>And the criticism is not completely off the mark.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to Reinhard Stelter’s deputy head of department, Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel, who is responsible for the teaching evaluations at NEXS. She has had several email correspondences and conversations with Reinhard Stelter after he was given the low grade. And during the course of these conversations she managed to persuade him to not go through with his threatened boycott of the evaluations.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>No-one in the system really appreciates the evaluations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Reinhard Stelter, Professor, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00bbI can also sometimes think: This is a real nuisance, loading all of this on to us all,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<p>It takes a lot of work to process the evaluations. Too much, according to Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel. She offers an example: The bachelor students who started at the department last summer have done seven evaluations in five months, and it all ends up at the administration.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe that’s why the response rate is often low. In the latest evaluation from December, one of the courses at NEXS only got one response, while only one in three students on the other courses evaluated them.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI can understand that the students get tired of it, because it takes time to consider what you have learned, what you can use the subject for, and how it can be improved,\u00ab says Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI would like to turn down the volume a bit, because I feel an evaluation fatigue in the system.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>\u00bbI’m just a slave to it\u00ab<\/h3>\n<p>She suggests that the administration should refrain from evaluating courses that have just been given an \u2018A\u2019 grade the year before, and concentrate on the courses with the lowest \u2018C\u2019 grade.<\/p>\n<p>But the evaluations do have some value, according to her. At least at her department.<\/p>\n<p>When a course is given a \u2018C\u2019, then management always makes an effort to improve the course, she says. This happened as recently as the latest evaluation at the turn of the year, when an instructor was summoned to an interview. The instructor has now been assigned mentors to develop the course.<\/p>\n<p>We should not, therefore, abolish the written teaching evaluations, she says. But she would like to get rid of a part of the supervision that Reinhard Stelter criticises.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI would like to change the evaluation system. But I can’t tell you how it should be done. We need help from those who do research on the subject. I’m just a slave of it myself.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>Would seem lame to abolish it<\/h3>\n<p>The same message can be heard higher up in the system.<\/p>\n<p>Rie Snekkerup, Deputy Director for Education & Students at the University of Copenhagen, agrees that the system has become too large and complex.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe balance has tipped towards having too much supervision. It is possible that we should be measuring and assessing things a bit less than we do today.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>But it’s one thing to take note of the fact that there is too much supervision. Another to cut down on it.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I feel an evaluation fatigue in the system<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Susanne Gjedsted B\u00fcgel, deputy Head of department, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The university cannot just abolish the evaluations, according to Rie Snekkerup. The knowledge that comes from them is useful for faculties and boards of studies, when they have to ensure that students get the highest quality teaching.<\/p>\n<p>If the University of Copenhagen dropped the written evaluations it would get into trouble. The university gets its accreditation from the Danish Accreditation Institution, which requires that the quality of the teaching is systematically measured and assessed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIf we were to replace the way we do teaching evaluations today, we would need alternatives. We can’t just abolish it. Then the accreditation people would immediately ask us why we did it. And it would seem lame to just say that the system did not provide the knowledge we needed, without us having thought about other solutions.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Rie Snekkerup hopes that the University of Copenhagen will be able to \u00bbsimplify the system\u00ab when the university has to be accredited again in 2024. She cannot yet say how, however.<\/p>\n<h3>Demoted to a tiny cog in the machine<\/h3>\n<p>If you ask Reinhard Stelter, the university should trust the instructors themselves to evaluate their own teaching.<\/p>\n<p>As a head of section for thirteen years he knows, however, that it is a difficult situation for his department management team.<\/p>\n<p>They are expected to be loyal to the system, he says. In fact, it was the increase in top-down management that was the reason why he himself gave up his role as head of section at the end of 2015. He had had enough of pushing through decisions that he disagreed with.<\/p>\n<p>When he speaks out now, while many of his colleagues stay quiet due to what he calls a \u00bbfear of reprisals\u00ab, it is because he can: \u00bbWell, I’m a senior, so I have nothing to lose,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>He leans back in his office chair and laughs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbYou used to be something when you were a professor,\u00ab he continues.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbNow you have been demoted to a tiny cog in the machine. As a whole, the university in Denmark has completely eradicated all democracy and co-determination.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>This is the larger story about the teaching evaluations, according to him. At the universities, you just do what people tell you to from above \u2013 whether it is the ministry or the management \u2013 even if it is a waste of time.<\/p>\n<p><em>But management needs to be able to see how students view the quality of the teaching, so that instructors can’t\u00a0 just ignore the criticism and suggestions?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThis is the fundamental question that arises in the entire public sector: How much should the system be based on trust and how much by supervision? I have to say that one of the most central virtues in the interplay between a manager and an employee is mutual trust,\u00ab says Reinhard Stelter.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI’m dreaming of this kind of system. Not the cold system that we have right now.\u00ab<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with our top stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":true,"references":[{"reference":{"ID":129986,"post_author":"83","post_date":"2022-02-07 08:01:12","post_date_gmt":"2022-02-07 07:01:12","post_content":"If you are a student at a Danish university, you know what we are talking about: Maybe the semester is almost over, and your thoughts are circling around the upcoming exams. Suddenly one, two, three questionnaires pop up in your inbox.\r\n\r\nYou have to evaluate all the courses you just did. And if you don't respond, you can look forward to a stream of reminders.\r\n\r\nProfessor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/professor-got-a-bad-grade-for-his-teaching-its-a-cold-system\/\">Reinhard Stelter calls the whole process \u00bba useless ritual\u00ab<\/a>. But why does the university use resources on teaching evaluations? How are they set up, and what are they used for?\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nFor Danish universities, it is a legal requirement to publish their evaluation results. If they do not live up to transparency requirements, they may be reported to the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science. The agency does not, however, supervise the universities' evaluation work on an ongoing basis.\r\n\r\nIn addition to this, universities have to measure the quality of their teaching in order to obtain accreditation from the Danish Accreditation Institution.\r\n\r\nBut how this is done in practice is up to the university itself. It is, specifically, the study programme management teams and the boards of studies at the different individual faculties that plan, conduct and supervise the work.\r\n\r\nThe purpose is, according to the University of Copenhagen's guidelines, \u00bbto improve the teaching,\u00ab and \u00bbto ensure a good framework for students' learning and their completion of studies\u00ab. At the same time, the idea is that \u00bbthe evaluation process contributes to the instructors' commitment to the development of teaching activities, and that it contributes to sharing experiences from the classrooms\u00ab.\r\n\r\nThe evaluations should therefore be seen as a help to both students and instructors, and ultimately should lead to a better teaching experience for both.\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\nThe evaluation of the teaching can take on the format of a balancing of expectations, interim evaluations and final evaluations. While the first two formats should ideally help improve the teaching during the course, the latter format is a final assessment and is the one that is used as a final evaluation of the courses.\r\n\r\nIn practical terms, the final evaluations consist of questionnaires, which are set up internally at the different faculties and sent to students via email. This is done in-house by an administrative employee, for example, or by student assistants of a study programme\u2019s management. The individual departments may decide for themselves where the emphasis should be in the questionnaire, and what the process is.\r\n\r\nThe responses are used to prepare an annual evaluation report, which, according to the University of Copenhagen's guidelines, is published on the faculties' website. It is here that the instructors, rather than the students, get graded.\r\n\r\nThe top grade A is given to courses that \u00bbfunction particularly well, and that can serve as an inspiration to others\u00ab. At the other end of the scale is the grade C, given if there is \u00bba need for more adjustments\u00ab.\r\n\r\nHow the grades are awarded is up to the individual faculties. It can be done based on a qualitative assessment, or quantitatively based on the number of evaluations and their assessments.\n<!-- end of module 3 -->\nSo how do all these reports affect the quality of the teaching? This may well seem a bit unclear to those outside the loop \u2013 including the students. There are typically no requirements for communicating the results back to the students who have just evaluated their courses.\r\n\r\nIn the evaluation reports, there should be a comment on the results and, in particular, how the evaluation will be followed up on the C graded courses.\r\n\r\nBut what this follow-up consists of is something that typically ends up staying between the department and study programme management and the instructor.\r\n\r\nThe evaluations are also used by the boards of studies when they have to approve curricula for the new semesters.\n<!-- end of module 4 -->\nThe University of Copenhagen spends both time and money every year on salaries for employees who are responsible for the evaluation work. But many teachers can't see the purpose of the final evaluations, according to sports professor Reinhard Stelter, who calls them \u00bba useless ritual\u00ab. There are indications that the students feel the same way \u2013 the response rates are generally very low.\r\n\r\n\u00bbNo-one in the system really appreciates the evaluations. But our hands are totally tied. Because everyone just toes the line in accordance with the rules that come from the top,\u00ab says Reinhard Stelter.\n<!-- end of module 5 -->\n","post_title":"\u00bbA useless ritual\u00ab? This is why instructors and students have to hand in evaluations","post_excerpt":"The University of Copenhagen spends both time and payroll on evaluating the quality of teaching in their courses. But why actually? And what are they used for? Here is an overview.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"a-useless-ritual-this-is-why-instructors-and-students-have-to-give-in-evaluations","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-02-09 09:33:30","post_modified_gmt":"2022-02-09 08:33:30","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/et-ligegyldigt-ritual-derfor-skal-undervisere-og-studerende-evaluere-undervisningen\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":22919,"post_author":"12","post_date":"2010-05-01 04:00:00","post_date_gmt":"0000-00-00 00:00:00","post_content":"Leopold Galicki has a Polish accent. This, he would be the first to admit.\r\n\r\nBut a poor student assessment of his English-language skills in teaching Marginalization in Sociology at the University of Copenhagen spilled over into an evaluation of the content, and this provoked him: provoked him so much, he decided to respond, using the evaluation to prove a point to students about marginalization itself.\r\n\r\nIn the evaluation, one student said that his \u00bbEnglish is difficult to follow\/understand, which makes it hard to concentrate. I feel that with the bad English points are not made at all or made well in class\u00ab.\r\n\r\nStudent evaluations are anonymous, but lecturers can cross-check and can see whether one particular student, who evaluates the English negatively, also evaluates negatively under other rubrics.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5364\"> See article <em> Bad accent is considered bad teaching<\/em> here. <\/a>\r\n\r\n<h2>Critique was out of proportion<\/h2>\r\nAnd this is precisely the problem, according to Leopold Galicki. He can see that a low evaluation of the English in a few students has affected the evaluation of his teaching and the course content in the same students.\r\n\r\nThis means that the assessment of his language skills skews the objectivity of the student evaluation as a whole. \r\n\r\nIn a bizarre example, a student who self-reported that she or he had read 20 per cent of the course readings, found the difficulty of the teaching insufficient, the academic standard not good, and that the points are not made well in class.\r\n\r\n\u00bbI have received critical remarks before, but this time the critique from specifically two students was unacceptable, as it was completely out of proportion\u00ab he says to the University Post. \r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5366\">Read the article <em>A new look at teaching in English<\/em> here.<\/a>\r\n\r\n<h2>Tolerance is important too<\/h2>\r\nHe responded to the evaluation by sending to his students a <a href=\"node\/5391\">four-page 1500-word analysis<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIt is a fluid border between accepting objective criticism and taking it personally. But this time it was an impossible critique, and judging from my feedback since then, the students have been positively surprised by my reaction,\u00ab he says.\r\n\r\nFor Leopold Galicki, his evaluation raises another controversial issue. Should academics be fluent in the language they teach? Some students clearly expect fluent English in an English-language course, he says.\r\n\r\n\u00bbBut I think that the level of English is only relevant in so far as it allows the teacher to teach a certain conceptual apparatus. A teacher may have some accent problems, and we teachers have different English capabilities, but students should be tolerant of this. \r\n\r\n\u00bbA class where the students and the teacher have different English capabilities is itself a challenge. It is important to exercise this in the global village, and it is more challenging than sitting in a class where all talk Cambridge- or Princeton-English,\u00ab he says.\r\n\r\nHe goes on to argue that \u00bbstudents should only graduate from university if they are open to what we at first sight may regard as strange, unfamiliar, and not easy to understand\u00ab.\r\n\r\nmiy@adm.ku.dk\r\n\r\n\r\n","post_title":"Lecturer provoked by poor English evaluation","post_excerpt":"Students said he was hard to understand. He countered with a four-page written response: Their evaluation was flawed","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"lecturer-provoked-by-poor-english-evaluation","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2017-01-21 05:19:11","post_modified_gmt":"2017-01-21 05:19:11","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=22919\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":21491,"post_author":"12","post_date":"2010-12-28 05:59:50","post_date_gmt":"2010-12-28 04:59:50","post_content":"Wannabe University spends hundreds of millions on construction projects every year. It tries to attract top professors, researchers and students through slick advertising campaigns. It aspires to be a university at the top of the rankings. And it disagrees with the methodology of the rankings that it doesn't score well on.\r\n\r\nSound familiar?\r\n\r\nIt should, says Gaye Tuchman, in Copenhagen to talk about her new book 'Wannabe University'.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThe university is disgustingly representative: We are all wannabes,\u00ab she says.\r\n<h2>Behind the mahogany curtain<\/h2>\r\n'Wannabe', of course, is slang for 'want to be', a person with an ambition to be someone or something that they are not.\r\n\r\nGaye Tuchman, herself a University of Connecticut professor, did six years of field work in Wannabe, a fictive name for a real 20,000-student US university, actually half way down the rankings, that remains anonymous despite repeated attempts by the University Post to have her divulge it.\r\n\r\nAnonymity was one of the conditions of her gaining access to its coffee rooms, lecture halls and staff meetings.\r\n\r\n\u00bbUniversities have the na\u00efve assumption that they are terrific. Some are so bad at PR that they think that if they present the best face, then this is the face you are going to believe. So long as you don't use your right to access documents under the Freedom of Information Act, people don't ask questions about what you are doing,\u00ab she says.\r\n<h2>Observing in silence<\/h2>\r\nAs it happens, Wannabe University staff and faculty knew full well what Gaye Tuchman was doing when she sat in at meetings, \u00bbtapping loudly on her outdated laptop,\u00ab she says.\r\n\r\nBut like a fly on the wall, she blended in to the surroundings, all the time observing how decisions were made on work processes, budgets, restructures, hires, and layoffs.\r\n\r\nWannabe, like other US universities, is under the spell of the business world: Knowledge is subordinated to profit, the buzzwords are the latest fads from the corporate sector, and powerful managers override professional skills in a drive for efficiency, economy and effectiveness.\r\n<h2>Joke every 20 minutes<\/h2>\r\nBut the efficiency gains are illusory, just window dressing to make the university look better by scoring higher on the tables.\r\n\r\n\u00bbOne way to increase your ranking is to mess around with the size of classes. You get points for the number of classes under 20? Offer a one-credit course with under 20 students taught by non-academic staff that consider it prestigious to teach first-year students,\u00ab says Tuchman.\r\n\r\nRelatively fewer points for classes of over 50 in the US News and World rankings?\r\n\r\n\u00bbYou might as well make one class with 450!\u00ab, she adds.\r\n\r\nTrouble getting chummy with your 100-student class?\r\n\r\n\u00bbUse humour!\u00ab an administrator suggested. \u00bbIt is always good to show a picture of yourself as a child. Use small talk. Tell a joke every 20 minutes!\u00ab\r\n<h2>Job merry-go-round<\/h2>\r\nTop managers and administrators at Wannabe rotate with other universities, switching jobs and allegiances every five years or so, a bit like high-octane chief executives of the largest companies on the stock market.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThere is something to be said for this: Internally promoted managers find it hard to fire people. It is difficult to fire the parent of a kid who plays with your kid,\u00ab says Tuchman.\r\n\r\nThe trouble is, she says, that managers and top administrators no longer have the interests of their current university at heart.\r\n\r\n\u00bbAdministrators plan their career in terms of moving on to the next university. I asked the provost (pro-rector\u2026 ed.) of Wannabe. Why did you take the job here? 'I heard it is a good place to move from,' he responded. And he was right! Provosts from Wannabe have indeed become presidents of the best public universities\u00ab.\r\n<h2>Don't ask questions<\/h2>\r\nIn recent years, universities have expanded their layer of middle management. In Wannabe, as elsewhere, more staff has been hired to take care of patenting, PR, to seek contributions, process students, and most ominously according to Gaye Tuchman, audit the teaching faculty and other staff.\r\n\r\nThe expansion of auditing seems on the surface to be benign, if not mildly neurotic. A bit like simply \"waking up in the morning and stepping on the scales to see what you weigh,\" as Tuchman puts it.\r\n\r\nThe trouble is, the auditing and accounting, and the related centralisation of key university functions, is undermining teaching and research, Tuchman believes.\r\n\r\n\u00bbOne person outlines a course, another designs the slides, a third performs in class, and a fourth assesses it. This is killing thinking\u00ab.\r\n<h2>Audit culture<\/h2>\r\nProfessors often grew up doing well on tests. This personality type is easy to seduce into becoming an accessory to their own redundancy.\r\n\r\n\u00bbBut the pride in being at the head of the pack can keep people from noticing that their rear is being pinched,\u00ab says Tuchman.\r\n\r\nYounger assistant professors play along with the increasing demands of the audit culture, complying with the new conformity in the hope of achieving tenure. As one assistant professor at Wannabe let it slip: \u00bbI don't want to give an opinion, because I don't know what other people think.\u00ab\r\n<h2>Textbook rip-off<\/h2>\r\nTuchman argues that Wannabe, inspired by managerial ideology has put in place an accountability regime, structuring courses like an assembly line, standardising products to increase output, and thereby allowing further spurious quality assessments that don't really measure what they are trying to measure.\r\n\r\nBut the premise that the practices of the business world are taking over universities, may not be accurate, write Tuchman's critics. The inspiration is the other way round. The work-ways of the academic world are actually feeding into business, US professor Andrew Ross argues in the Chronicle for Higher Education.\r\n\r\nFor high-wage employees at least, a traditional academic work mentality has taken on in the real business sector. The 24\/7 cycle of generating ideas, the loose, overlapping live-work schedule, the custom of sharing knowledge and the need for sabbaticals: all these elements are in fact inspired by universities, he writes.\r\n<h2>Universities aren't factories<\/h2>\r\nSo how far can the assembly-line inspiration actually go? Are businesses, or at least successful, knowledge-sector businesses, actually doing something else?\r\n\r\n\u00bbWhile the pure assembly-line model works best for online education, it tends not to work for in-class teaching and research,\u00ab Tuchman explains to the University Post.\r\n\r\nAnd it is precisely the attempt to introduce assembly line accountability and standardisation that ends in the irrational, unintended outcomes, she explains.\r\n<h2>The future of education<\/h2>\r\nTake the textbook market for example. Using the same textbook seems good. They even come with power point slides for the teachers, and tests - complete with answers. But this is not good for real teaching and learning. And \"a new edition now comes out every three years, so students can't resell the old ones\", she says.\r\n\r\nWhat about Europe? Are we with the Bologna process attempting to go down the same road of standardised curricula, textbooks and degrees?\r\n\r\n\u00bbIn Europe you haven't got as far as us, but if you all go through with Bologna, then you will get to where we are.\u00ab\r\n<h2>Make a stink<\/h2>\r\nIn Copenhagen, at the lecture by Gaye Tuchman, media professor Stig Hjarvard asks about the shrinking autonomy of the professors.\r\n\r\n\u00bbAccountability! How can anyone be against this?\u00ab he asks rhetorically, before asking his real question: \u00bbWhat are the countermeasures? What do you recommend?\u00ab\r\n\r\nMore resistance, Tuchman urges.\r\n\r\n\u00bbI believe in making a stink, and making it as hard for them to implement the accountability and managerial system as possible. Because I don't think you can stop it\u2026\u00ab\r\n\r\nBuy Gaye's book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wannabe-U-Inside-Corporate-University\/dp\/0226815307\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University<\/a>.\r\n\r\nmiy@adm.ku.dk\r\n\r\n<em>Stay in the know about news and events happening in Copenhagen by <a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/adm\/universitypost\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signing up for the University Post\u2019s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em>\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\n","post_title":"Down and out in Wannabe University","post_excerpt":"FEATURE: Professor went undercover to find out how a large US university really worked. She found an institution in the thrall of auditing, corporate ideology and obsessive rankings","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"down-and-out-in-wannabe-university","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-07 10:31:28","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-07 08:31:28","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=21491\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":12988,"post_author":"12","post_date":"2013-04-05 09:09:57","post_date_gmt":"2013-04-05 07:09:57","post_content":"It is like no other country in Europe.\r\n\r\nStudents are taught musicology - but gain no knowledge of how to read notes and sheet music. German \u2013 but are instructed the language in English or Danish. Cultural history \u2013 but are sent off on a new-age style \u2018sound walk\u2019 down the town centre.\r\n\r\nGerman professor of musicology Linda Maria Koldau\u2019s new book \u2018Jante University\u2019 will provoke those who believe in the Danish university model: After all have you ever heard of a Danish university system seriously being compared to state communism?\r\n\r\nBut Linda Maria Koldau \u2014 who has been the centre of controversy since she first started formulating her inside criticisms in featured comments and editorials in Danish media \u2014 does it!\r\n<h2>Trials and tribulations<\/h2>\r\nShe does it in her introduction, and promises to do more of it in the unpublished volumes: In Linda Koldau\u2019s reading, Danish universities have a fatal focus on control and bureaucracy, with a growing, but more and more inefficient administration. Their \u201csystematic repression of expertise and criticism\u201d is only surpassed by their vacuous language use, a corporate-inspired bullshit-culture.\r\n\r\nThe first volume of Linda Maria Koldau\u2019s new book, Jante University, has just been published (only in Danish).\r\n\r\nThrough the 400 or so pages of the first volume she introduces the beginnings of her trials and tribulations at the hands of a Danish university bureaucracy.\r\n<h2>Wake up call<\/h2>\r\nIn the book, her former university, Aarhus University, is politely disguised as \u2018Jante\u2019. It refers to the fictional Law of Jante: A claim that Scandinavians negatively portray and criticize individual success and achievement. She herself takes on the name of Liane in the book, and gives her former colleagues and bosses thinly disguised pseudonyms that fit the first letters of their names.\r\n\r\nTo the University Post, Linda Maria Koldau explained that it is halfway between a work of reference and a documentary novel.\r\n\r\nThe book is introduced as \u201ca \u2018wake up call\u2019 to the present debate in our society on how we in Denmark take care of the ennoblement of the only raw material that we have in our small society.\u201d\r\n<h2>Music with no notes<\/h2>\r\nLike any good story, she builds up to her point of no return:\r\n\r\nAs a German academic coming to Denmark, her first experiences with Denmark were positive. But things started to go wrong when she found out that the professional level was \u201csurprisingly low. Surprising, because Denmark invests more in education and research per person than in any other European country\u201d.\r\n\r\nThe Danish facade starts to break. Students here are taught to apply a range of high-flying theoretical systems over very specific cultural and historical phenomena: But they are not taught a respect for the hard reality.\r\n<h2>European universities beware<\/h2>\r\nEuropean universities should take heed: Denmark\u2019s system gives management more power than in any other European universities, repressing criticism, riding roughshod over the rules in their treatment of employees.\r\n\r\nAccording to her, Danish universities are an example of New Public Management. In this, her criticism is akin to<a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/down-and-out-in-wannabe-university\/\"> Gaye Tuchman\u2019s in Wannabe University (reviewed in the University Post here)<\/a> and the criticism by <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/copenhagen-university-administrators-get-football-player-salaries\/\">auditors of Danish universities\u2019 administration here<\/a>.\r\n<h2>Am I in the book?<\/h2>\r\nLinda Maria Koldau says to the University Post that the book has the ambition to become a \u2018book of reference\u2019, but here her documentary novel style so far does not live up to the lofty ambition.\r\n\r\nAs a tale of cultural confusion, yes. As campus intrigue, yes. As a serious criticism of Danish universities, yes. But not as a book of reference.\r\n\r\nThat said it offers a critical insight into how the Danish academy works. Sadly it is only in Danish.\r\n\r\nInterviewed for the University Post, she said <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/new-book-by-professor-slams-danish-universities\/\">recently that this book was not about revenge<\/a>. But her colleagues and her extended network in Aarhus and other Danish universities will likely scour the book for references to people they know.\r\n\r\nJante University is not supposed to be a scandal book. But for Aarhus, and other Danish universities like it, surely this is \u2026 oh so embarrassing.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/jante-university-excerpt-from-linda-maria-koldaus-book\/\">Read an excerpt from the book here.<\/a>\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\n","post_title":"Review: Danish academia - an ideology like communism","post_excerpt":"Linda Koldau's new book on Danish universities is not supposed to be a scandal book. But is this embarrassing, or what? \r\n","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"review-danish-academia-an-ideology-like-communism","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-05-06 10:15:44","post_modified_gmt":"2021-05-06 08:15:44","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=12988\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}}],"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":42,"name":"Education","slug":"education","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":42,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":661,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":1024,"name":"NEXS","slug":"nexs-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1024,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":5241,"name":"Reinhard Stelter","slug":"reinhard-stelter-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5241,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11492,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stelter2-1280x855.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130033"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130047,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130033\/revisions\/130047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}